The Law.com Technology Center features a fine article about striking a balance about remote access. The article ends up advocating GoToMyPC, now owned by Citrix.

I've used the Citrix server in the past as well as GoToMyPC. The Citrix server solution is unbelieveably expensive for a small firm. The GoToMyPC solution is moderately expensive and it works well.

Wayne Smith, the author of the Law.com Technology Center article thought that a VPN was too difficult for his small firm of 30 attorneys because it involved management of too many client computers.

We've had the opposite experience.

We use a SonicWall for hardware security and a three-level password interface. The Microsoft VPN is very easy to set up, especially on client computers. In fact, with just a small amount of coaching, our attorneys have been able to virtually do it themselves. Plus, it's encrypted.

The best part? Microsoft VPN costs nothing more to add or use. It's included in XP and our Windows 2003 server.

We had already paid for it. It's nice to use the server software to its fullest extent without having to pay for additional software and configurations.